Without Trace

by Rae Richen

  “Sure,” the big guy said, and he looked at Dan. “Don’t come on to the young ones.”

  Glyn saw Dan’s jaw muscles bunch, so he nudged him. “Any young ones gone missing?” Glyn asked.

  “Some don’t come back from the Yo-Plait, if that’s what you mean.” The guy dropped his board as if to get back to practicing.

  “Any idea where they end up?”

  “I didn’t follow them, but they went in the wrong direction for ice cream – off toward the tile factory and the lumber yards.”

  “So, just like at the game stores, some guys come to play, some come to pick up,” Glyn said.

  “Some come to take you off to California.”

  “California?” Dan asked. “That’d be great.”

  The big guy stared at him. “Not sunny California,” he said.

  “You mean up in the mountains?” Dan said. “Skiing and like that?”

  The two fellows looked at each other. The smaller guy said, “Yeah. Like that.”

  But Glyn said, “Dan, I think he means more like indoor recreation.”

  The big guy looked at Dan with narrowed eyes. He said, “You don’t want to tell your naïve friends about indoor recreation. That might burst their bubble.”

  Dan bristled, but Glyn spoke quickly. “So, what’s the trail to California. It starts here with the pick-up and goes off to the not-so Yo-Plait, and then what?”

  “Then into a truck and off on the big adventure.”

  “You wouldn’t be telling this if the big adventure were your business. Do you know some who’ve been taken on that route?”

  “We’re just guessing. But the lost ones are the reason we stay till the last kid goes home.”

  “These kids have a home? Someone picks them up?” Glyn asked.

  “Naw. We finally tell them the park is closed and to get to the bus. We’re not here to worry about anything but the rep of the park.”

  “This park never closes.” Dan dropped his board as if to challenge someone to a skate duel.

  “This park closes in half an hour,” the guy said, squaring off with Dan.

  “Dan, we got a job. I think we’ve got to go write it up.”

  Dan didn’t really want to challenge the big guy, so he stepped on his board, flipped around and skated off.

  “Thanks for your help with our article,” Glyn said.

  “Bet the school principal won’t let you print most of what we talked about.”

  “True. By the way, you know a guy named Trace? Skinny, black, dreds...”

  “And a habit?”

  “Last few months, yeah. I’m worried about him. Seen him in the last couple of days?”

  “We told him to steer clear of this place. He’s got bad-news friends.”

  “You know where they hang?”

  “Used to sell down here, but we call 911 when they show. Some policeman named Bailey, the first cop they sent, he didn’t care and didn’t get it. He thought we were the trouble. But we kept calling, and now, the horse cop comes every day, so they disappeared to a little further north. Not sure where. You think he’s crosswise with them?”

  “I do.”

  “Stay out of that. He earned it.”

  “He’s sick.”

  “By choice.”

  Glyn ignored that myth. He asked, “Further north? You mean up Grand Ave?”

  “Seen a couple of them on Weidler Street the other day, but they move.”

  The smaller guy said, “I seen em near Second and Flanders.”

  “Flanders,” the big guy said, “Poppy fields. That fits.”

  Glyn didn’t know exactly what the guy meant. Were there really poppies somewhere along Flanders Street?

  He didn’t want to ask, so he said, “What do they look like?”

  “Their leader has big guts, too small pants, curls like a I-talian, and dinky fingers.”

  “Thanks. You see Trace, please tell him Glyn asked for him. Call home.”

  “Home?”

  “His mom’s worried, and me, too.”

  “Glyn, better catch your friend, Dan. He’s a walking trouble machine.”

  “Don’t take him seriously.”

  “You should.”

  **

  Within two blocks, Glyn knew the guy was right about Dan. He turned the corner at Second and what might have been Davis to find public land had been turned into a small village of tiny houses with an herb garden, and an awning for a kitchen. Near the awning stood two rows of seven wooden structures, each with an address and a front porch. Two port-a-potties sat near the homes, but a little behind them.

  Six angry people surrounded Dan. Two of them were women, the other four were men, some as old as Glyn’s Grandma Willie.

  One of the old men shook a finger in Dan’s face. “Don’t keep knockin’ on my door when I tell you to go away.”

  Dan’s face screwed as tight as his fake cornrows. “Was that a home? Thought it was a outhouse,” Dan shouted.

  Glyn walked to the edge of the group. Dan looked up at him and said, “Isn’t that right? Looks like a outhouse to me.”

  “You’re way behind the times, kid,” Glyn said to Dan. “That is the newest kind of home, and the best. The crowd now surrounded Glyn as well. “So,” Glyn said to Dan, “why don’t you apologize and leave here with me.”

  “I don’t apologize to some geezer comes bargin’ out like I’ve no right to knock.”

  “It’s probably how you knocked, plus, it’s after dark, let the man sleep.”

  “His light was on.”

  “So, let him read.”

  “You’re a dick, Glyn Jones.”

  One of the women stepped up to Glyn and said, “Take your friend out of here and don’t let him come back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Glyn took Danny by the arm. “You’re coming with this Dick, right now.”

  Danny swung hard and connected with Glyn’s jaw. As he fell backwards, three of the men picked Dan up and sent him sprawling at the foot of the outhouse. One fellow swung the door open and three others picked him up, holding him over the port-a-potty.

  The woman who had talked to Glyn ran over there and pulled at one man. “Put him down, Jake. You wanna go to jail for this punk?”

  “Nope,” Jake said and dropped Danny’s left arm. The other two held on and said, “On Three.”

  From the grass, Glyn yelled . “He’s not worth the trouble. Let him come home with me and we won’t bother you again.”

  “Not worth the trouble, but this is a message to all like him.”

  They dipped him down into the port-a-potty hole. “Far enough,” said the other woman.

  They pulled him out and dropped him on the ground. Dan’s hair was covered with shit, and some of his face. As the men stepped back, Glyn pulled Dan’s t-shirt over his head. He mopped his eyes and then his hair.

  “Lie still so it won’t drip,” he said, noting for the first time, how very skinny Dan really was.

  He couldn’t get all the shit out of the hair, and he knew they should go to urgent care for the eyes, but he got enough that it wouldn’t rain down on his shoulders when he rose.

  “Stand up and walk,” Glyn said.

  Danny lunged at him. “Not worth it?”

  Glyn stood up. “Getting more worthless by the minute. Come get me when you learn not to start fights just because you’re feeling small.”

  He walked away. The men and women stood nearby, but they just watched Dan leave. Glyn saw that one man had a shovel in his hand.

  Dan stood up, swung his hair around like a dog and splattered the nearest small house with shit.

  The old man lifted his shovel like a pole axe. Dan backed up and started running. The man chased him a whole block before giving up.

  Glyn let him go. He foresaw a lot of trouble if he followed to make sure Dan got home safely. Let him live with what he bought himself.

  Chapter Ten

  As Glyn started up Burnside toward home, he saw that all of this ac
tion had been watched by an inebriated fellow and also by the younger three kids from the skate park. They all waited for the bus at Burnside Street and Martin Luther King Avenue.

  “Your friend’s not comin’ here, is he?” one of the kids asked.

  For the first time, Glyn realized these skaters were only about ten or eleven years old.

  “I hope he’s not coming this way,” Glyn said. “Here comes your bus. Best get on and duck him. I’ll keep walking and hope he follows me.”

  “That fat dude is following you,” one kid said.

  Glyn glanced back across Martin Luther King. On the northwest corner of Burnside and MLK, Glyn saw a man with a huge belly hanging over his pants. The man turned his curly head from watching Dan to watching Glyn.

  But Glyn and Dan were split up. The fat fellow with the too small pants seemed to be debating which to keep an eye on.

  Glyn figured Dan didn’t notice this fat man, and didn’t know even to watch for him – that information had come to Glyn after Dan left the skate park. And Glyn knew there were probably partners to the man, maybe nearby, maybe on each corner.

  Back at the Tiny House settlement, the people were busy cleaning shit from their friend’s house, and didn’t care what happened to Dan.

  If this guy were aware of him and Dan as friends of Trace, Glyn needed to get to Dan and make sure he got home safely.

  Glyn picked up his board and crossed Burnside to the southeast corner, ready to go back and escort Dan home from afar. However, nobody seemed to be following him or Dan. And no one moved in on him.

  Yet.

  Just then, the bus passed Glyn. It stopped at the northeast corner. The three kids got on, but the wino suddenly wasn’t a wino. He jumped onto the bus as agile as any sober man.

  At that moment, Glyn realized it was the kids that Small Pants had been watching, and the wino was his confederate.

  Glyn ran around a screeching Subaru while re-crossing Burnside to catch up with the bus. He raced the bus for two blocks, dodging bicycles and pedestrians. Finally, he caught up with it at the next stop.

  He lifted his skateboard and jumped on the bus, pulled out his monthly pass, and discovered Fatman’s confederate sitting behind the three young skaters, engaging them with jokes.

  Glyn sat across the aisle from the confederate, hauled his board into his lap, and just listened. The rumble of the once-drunk-man’s knock-knock jokes led to Three-men-entered-a-tavern jokes which the kids seemed to laugh at as if they weren’t quite sure what was funny about a rabbi, a minister and a priest.

  Glyn studied the guy, so he could remember him again. There wasn’t much unusual about him – about Glyn’s own height, brown, straight, dirty hair, ragged levis, Nirvana t-shirt, converse gym shoes.

  But the fellow kept his face in an almost perpetual grin. After a few moments, Glyn realized the grin disguised the fact that the man couldn’t open his left eye all the way – as if it had been knife-slashed.

  The guy turned from three men jokes to condom jokes, and then rolled down the mud road to breast and titty jokes.

  The kids squirmed.

  Finally, Glyn said, “Fellow, give it up. Your jokes aren’t funny, they’re just dirt rolled in shit.”

  “What?” the guy said. “You got no funny bone?” he turned to the kids, jerked his thumb at Glyn and said, “Here’s a real pansy.”

  One of the three giggled.

  Glyn said, “You kids know this guy? Or is he just hitting on you?”

  Three sets of young eyes widened with understanding. They ducked their heads, two pretending to look out the window and the third opening a comic book.

  “What are you saying?” the guy asked. “We were just enjoying some humor until you barged into the conversation.”

  “After you hit on them, then what? You leave the bus with at least one of them in tow, and you’re off to the whorehouse with a new cute kid for older men to play with?”

  Glyn said this so the kids could hear and understand, but a woman passenger nearby glared at Glyn and said, “Why do you talk so dirty?”

  Glyn turned her comment on the other guy. “Why the dirty jokes?”

  “They’re funny,” the guy protested.

  “These guys weren’t laughing.”

  “Yeah, they were. Weren’t you, fellas?”

  The comic book boy said, “Not really. You’re just talking. Whyn’t you quit?”

  The other boys finally got up their courage.

  “Yeah.”

  “We want this space to ourselves.”

  The guy turned on Glyn. “We can take this outside.”

  “You can take it outside. I’m on the bus till home.”

  The guy grabbed Glyn’s arm. Glyn reached up and pulled the brake line on the bus, yelling. “Pull over and stop this guy from fighting.”

  The guy drew back his arm. Glyn stuffed a fist in the fellow’s stomach.

  The bus lurched to the side of Martin Luther King Avenue.

  The bus driver was a woman, but she came back holding up her cell phone and dialing a number. He could tell she’d take no guff.

  “Both of you get off,” she hissed

  “No,” said one of the young boys, pointing at Glyn. “That guy helped us.”

  The lady passenger said, “He was talking dirty. Said ‘whorehouse and stuff.”

  “No!” the boys chorused.

  “I don’t care who said what. Get off.”

  Glyn turned to the boys. “Tell your friends about guys like him. Don’t let them get taken in and then stolen.”

  Then he and his board swung off the bus and ran up the street before the other fellow could get out the door. When he looked back, the other man stood on Martin Luther King Avenue and stared at him.

  As the bus passed him, the boys rose up in the aisle and waved.

  **

  The bus had been going north, so now Glyn was near Weidler Street and not too far from the Lloyd Center Shopping Mall. Holly Hill Retirement was just to the east, so he ran through the park south of the mall. He arrived at Holly Hill Retirement Home in time to find the person at the front desk deep in conversation with Grandma Willie.

  Glyn sat on a sofa nearby to wait.

  “Oh, I’m certain Geneva Oppenheim will calm down,” Grandma said. “Something has begun to remind her of the old days.”

  “She sure doesn’t remember much about these days,” the receptionist said. “Yesterday she forgot to eat at all. And that policeman, Bailey, he’s been back here three times, kind of egging her on to accuse you.”

  Grandma Willie sighed. “I’m not too worried about Bailey, but if he’s encouraging her fears, he should be told to stop.”

  “Well. if he comes, I can’t exactly tell him she’s not here.”

  “No,” Grandma Willie said. “There are other things we can do. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get her to join me. It’s hard to come to the dining room when everyone is talking about you, and no one wants to sit with you.”

  “Rolly told me she’s now accused him of killing her uncle in some town in Germany, and Leah Müller thinks we should send her off to the nut house. I didn’t say ‘nut house’. Leah did.”

  Grandma Willie said. “I’m sure everyone who talks about Geneva thinks they are not gossips, but they are making things worse for her.”

  “I’m only telling you what people tell me.”

  “Uh-huh. As a kid, did you ever play telephone?”

  “I’m quoting exactly.”

  “But Beverly, that’s what everyone in the chain of information believes they’re doing. We’re human, so we don’t remember every word, and the words we don’t remember, we fill in with something close. Close may have many meanings, so two or three links down the chain, the meaning may not be the original meaning at all.”

  Beverly gazed off into the distance, and said, “Well, I’m not sure why you think you have to stick up for the nastiest person in the building.”

  “Would you want me to stick up
for you when you’re having a difficult time?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I see.” Grandma turned toward Glyn and said, “Mr. Jones, could you come take care of that bookcase we started to move yesterday?”

  Glyn knew this was her signal to come upstairs. “Sure thing, Mrs. Stamps. I think we can finish that job soon.”

  He followed her to the elevator. A few yards down the hall, he whispered, “People are really getting on Mrs. Oppenheim’s case, eh?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Who is this policeman, Bailey. I’ve heard his name before.”

  “Oh, he’s a guy who was in my writing class three times.”

  Glyn watched her face as he asked. “Got a way to keep him out of here?”

  She puckered her mouth, resigned, as if she’d dealt with such problems many times. “Possibly. You look like you ran the marathon.”

  “Maybe the five-mile. Danny and I checked the skate park under the Burnside Bridge, and Danny loves to mouth off.”

  “Got chased out?”

  “Not from the park, but from the Tiny House neighborhood just north of the park.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Not to go anywhere with Danny again.”

  “And about Trace?”

  “There’s a guy down there that Trace used to hang with. This guy used to sell drugs at the park. He was kicked out by the police and the bigger park guys, but he hovers around the place still, and he was there this evening.”

  “Might he have been selling to Trace?”

  “Maybe, he fits the park guys’ description, but he doesn’t fit DeAndre’s description of the two guys that are looking for me – and for Mom’s car.”

  “What’s this seller look like?”

  “Too big for his britches.”

  Grandma raised an eyebrow.

  Glyn said, “Sorry. Couldn’t pass it up. He’s so fat his belly hangs over his pants. And he’s got really curly black hair on this over-sized head. Big arms, short fingers. That’s how the older guys at the skate park described him. And there he was.”

  “You didn’t get a name, I suppose.”

  “Nobody knew it. Come to think of it, that’s how Felipe described the guy that came looking for Trace’s Taco Bell sack.”

  Glyn had never mentioned the bullet holes at Felipe’s station. Grandma would definitely bring in the police on that one.